~ Notes on Mike Stout ~
When playing through the levels its a good idea to make note of there a few things.
- Level Flow. How do the spaces in the level fit together? Where is the player supposed to go, and will she know how to get there?
- Intensity Ramping. Does the intensity of the experience ramp up in a satisfying way? Do monsters get more difficult as the level goes on? Does the player get a chance to learn how the enemies work and then display her mastery later on?
- Variety. Is there sufficient variety in the gameplay? Do enemy encounters frequently repeat themselves? Are the spaces varied in interesting ways?
- Training. If the design requires new skills from the player, does it teach and test those skills appropriately?
Level Flow - The level flow of the first level is linear but with shortcuts if the player is aware fo them or has the ability to take them. The player does not need to complete 100% of the level but just the main objectives to reach the end goal. There are a few different paths you can take but will inevitably end up on the main path. There are only a few instances where the player will have to go back on cover grounds but usually only to achieve side objectives.
Linear But Not - They use tricks like adding extra rooms at the start of the level, side shortcuts in various places that you would only know if you had done it before or smart enough to figure it out yourself. Revisiting covered ground near the beginning of the level but always leading the player towards the main critical path in the game also gives the player the feel of a less linear path within the game.
Ramping - The level of difficulty on the optimal path seems to increase steady, subtly and intentionally. It may not seem this way if you go off the main path due to repeating encounters upon entering new undiscovered area's that are not part of the main path. They do this using both increasing the amount of enemies in the area and the environment in which you fight them (blocks).
Variety - In the initial level they seem to only have one type of enemy per area but the number of them changes area to area and also adding in the environment changes like blocking walls etc. Meaning they can steady increase the difficulty of the encounters in each zone. Worth noting they never repeat the same fight over as each area is slightly different and increasing in difficulty. They also do not mix the enemies to increase its difficulty which is common practice these days.
Training - The black rooms in Zelda were originally designed to show hits & tips to the players but due to translation problems the English version did not provided this where as the Japanese version did.
What Did We Learn?
- It is possible to achieve the feel of non-linear level design by taking a linear path and adding short offshoots.
- Ramping encounters up along the critical path still allows you to have a good intensity ramp even if your level designs aren't all linear.
- Miyamoto and company intended to have training in the game, but it was excluded because of localization errors.
